Another Way: Chapter 12
The Backside of Valour: Part One
Sleep does not come easily to the old, the infirm, the anxious or the sick-at-heart.
To carry the burden of leadership in a time of war when the call to duty was best left to the younger generation, to shoulder responsibility when the scar of mortality stretched from chest to stomach, to fight the bile that rose with the cadence of a voice reduced to the gravel that paved a life's path, to justify sacrificing his child on the Alter of Survival so that there would be those to read the accounts of acts and decisions made before their time had rendered him sleepless and restless.
Heavy, deliberate steps stopped once he crossed the threshold and made his way down the access stairs.
The hanger bay was quiet. Third shift was just hours from completion and life on the ship – his ship – was as still as it ever got.
His eyes surveyed the Vipers, Raptors, shuttlecrafts, compressors, and toolboxes. Hoses snaking out along the decking carved up the bright white cavern into city-states of Repair, Re-Fit and Re-Instate.
He didn't know why his early morning wandering brought him here until he saw it.
His eyes travelled over his son's Mark VII. A passing glance acknowledged the presence of 'Laura', the stealth ship conceived, created and flown by a crew that needed a sense of accomplishment beyond living to see another day. It was not even his own ship, the one he flew more than thirty-five years ago, that he sought.
It was her ship, his daughter's Mark II that he needed to see. The ship that loved the best pilot he had ever seen and denied 'his' mistress nothing. The bird of prey was unique as the pilot who cradled the throttle with her gifted hands. For one thing, unlike most pilots, she always called her Viper a 'he', not a 'her', when she referred to her plane. Nor was this an ordinary Mark II. 'He' never said 'no' to his mistress because she never gave 'him' a reason to deny anything she asked of 'him'. She pushed 'him' to go faster because she tweaked his engine and streamlined his exchangers so that when she needed more power, he had it to give. She tumbled him end-over-end, twisting and pulling him through endless dogfights and intercept courses because she found a way to channel the effectiveness of his thrusters with a little more control than the other birds in The Nest so that when a situation mandated the need for a retina-detaching-beyond-insane manoeuvre, the possibility existed. And, to say that she loved 'him' back was a given.
Commander Adama had heard her expound to her nuggets just what it meant to be one with an aircraft before she teasingly hailed Galactica to ask if he wanted to 'Ring Around the Moon' with her class. Walking closer her Viper, his hands lightly traced the bold-faced letters of her rank, name and call sign even as her voice echoed his head.
"The Viper is a beautiful piece of machinery. Sensitive, responsive, tough, resilient, nurturing even, it is the embodiment of what every mother, father, brother, sister, lover, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend and frak-buddy should be. It tells you when something is wrong, it shows you when you have something right and it is always there for you in the same condition you left it when you landed it last."
He shared her passion for flying – the freedom, emancipation – that came with power, pitch, yaw and roll.
He shared her resiliency to conform even as they both found a sense of purpose in a world defined by rules, regulations and uniforms.
He shared her need to protect those they deemed themselves responsible for; despite the fact that interpersonal relationships were their greatest failures.
He shared her love of his sons – her men, their girl – and because of her, his eyes were opening and seeing more than the soldier that was in Lee or a pre-mature death that pre-empted all his memories of Zak.
He was glad that she was in a different plane when she had her hard landing thirteen weeks ago. Not that it was a good thing to have a Viper destroyed and salvaged for scraps or witness his daughter fight for her life for days on end. If she had been in her own bird that day, he would have been denied this moment to be with her despite the fact that she was gone.
Fingers trailing over the dents inflicted by various collisions, deeply imbedded scorch marks from enemy fire that fell on the inside line of a miss, the deep knick where the wing joined the body of the plane was what gave him pause in his introspection.
This is where she saved my son when we fled from Ragnar.
Resting a hand on one of the gunports, he paused again.
This is where she saved my ship – taking out two out of the three nuclear missiles launched and locked onto my Battlestar.
Breaking contact, he swept the area until he found what he was looking for – a ladder.
Bracing the ladder against her bird, he climbed up and into cockpit. The smell of soldered metal and a hint of cigar prickled his nose even as he bent his knees to accommodate his height. Funny how Starbuck never seemed shorter than him or anyone else, no matter what she was doing or whom she was doing it to. The Chief had installed a new seat into her Viper, but this was still Kara's bird and 'he' wasn't going to let her go anytime soon which explained why the Tyrol set the seat-setting where he did – the Viper told him to. The Chief also spoke Viper, but in a different dialect. Pilots had their own version of the Language of Vipers. He and Starbuck had talked about it one night, well into the night even, shortly after she joined the crew. How, if one listened and felt one's Viper, it will talk to you and tell you everything you need to know to make it home and live to launch another day. Lee felt it too, which explained why Adama had found his son keeping watch with his Mark VII in the hours before the tylium raid.
The perspective out the cockpit gave him pause.
This was the last the last thing she saw before she ejected and saved us all.
Now, he understood why he was here.
Looking at the console, tracing the tracks of the canopy with open palms, Husker talked to Starbuck's Viper like the man the plane represented.
"I am sorry." He let those words stand on their own before explaining himself. "It's just that I cannot afford to do this any other way. I know you will understand, even if you never forgive me."
Bracing his feet against the pedals to leverage himself out of the cockpit, his foot slipped and a hastily extended hand was all that saved him from falling back down. Getting his balance, he threw one leg and then the other over the side of the cockpit and climbed back down ladder.
Sure, he had probably stepped in a smear of grease, tracked it into the plane and transferred it to the pedals and that was why his foot jutted out from underneath him.
It was that rationalization that shrank to the background as he looked at Starbuck's Viper at the same time as the word 'orphan' slid to the foreground. Turning on his heels, turning his back to the inert plane, he headed toward the phone mounted on the wall.
The same sensations of getting old, feeling infirm, being anxious and sick-at-heart filled the four fingers that curled around the handset he used to dial CIC and page the Officer of the Watch.
"Make a note in the Daily Log. Make it read that Captain Adama is to report to the CO's quarters at the start of Second Shift."
Replacing the receiver, Husker knew better than to look over his shoulder even when the sound of his own hatch closing behind him clanked into place.
He could only accept so much guilt and accusations from 'him'. Adama needed to make sure that there would be plenty of room for Lee to heap his own accusations, anger and blame when the time came.
He had about ten hours in which to find the words – that had flowed so rationally between he and Roslin over the course of the past few days – in which to tell his son that events will be set in motion in which the end result will be Kara Thrace being killed by Colonial hands.
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The plushly cushioned chair was nice, but not necessary. Not for him, anyway. His body was used to hardship. The consideration his fellow Models showed him was truly a testament to God's grace and the peace that permeated Cylon society.
The dull glow of a view screen shadowed the more hollow planes on his face as he watched the woman on the other end of the cyber-optic feed slip into the throes of another nightmare.
Lifting a finger, careful not to smudge the screen as that would be disrespectful to the Model who next sat in his comfortable chair, he traced the outline of the increasingly restless woman.
If he chose to, he could feel remorse for what he knew she was going be experiencing – she had a pattern that hadn't faltered in weeks. But, to what end? How could he feel empathy for a woman who refused to see The Light, to accept God's love?
If Kara cannot love God, then how can he expect her to love him, as he is one of God's children?
Number Three argued that her belief in the Lords of Kobol competed for the same place in her soul that deserved to house God's Will. He let Three attempt to beat the heresy out of Kara on a regular basis.
But, his Kara is made of sterner stuff than Three originally attributed to the Colonial warrior. Starbuck took everything Three dished out and asked for more with a challenging glint to her eye even as her own blood trailed down from her back and streaked the backsides of her legs.
Leaning forward and further activating the console, he tapped out a command. Immediately the camera zoomed in and refocused.
Kara was starting to thrash.
In moments, he would hear her screaming.
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It is the same nightmare that had been recurring every night for the past few days – weeks? – however long she had been on the receiving end of Three's attempts to convert her to a belief in One True God. Over and over again, it was always the same sequence of images and soul-shaking emotions.
She is in a Raider – but she is part of the Raider. There are other Raiders trailing her, spread out in a formation of her designation. She is giving chase to Colonial Vipers, shooting them down. She gets the job done. She gets lock. She gets tone. So does every single one of her Raiders. She fires – and as if in slow motion – she can see the rounds erupt from her gunports. The ammunition streaks across space and in the seconds it takes for the round to hit the Viper, she is convinced that the next thing she will see is one of her own dead by her hand; nullifying the existence she has resigned herself too and taking away the reason why she hasn't wrapped her chains around her throat. To kill her fellow man would be killing her. To kill herself would mean that the Cylons broke her. If she breaks, then all the promises that she has made herself regarding the devastation she will leave in her wake when she makes her escape will be nothing but empty words and she does not make hollow promises – not to herself, not to anyone.
That was why, when that bitch D'Anna Biers beats and stripes her, she calls on the most defiant aspect of her personality to make the wails of pain that radiate from her back stick to the back of her mouth. Just to be a bitch and snub her bloodied nose at the Cylon's attempt to break her, she makes it seem as if she was moaning in erotic pleasure and spares her breath to goad the Cylon instead of giving into the excruciating pain and asking them to stop hurting her. It's also the reason she can, during particularly nasty sessions with the other blond Cylon, pray for and accept Athena's gift of calmness, enabling her to just hang there and do nothing to detract from the sound of the whip welting and biting into her body.
As the rounds hit the Viper, her dreams meld with the memories born in an altered reality and the Viper hangs dead in the vacuum of space. Others limp out of the immediate combat zone even as she corrals her squadron of Raiders and makes ready for another pass. She does not – she cannot – let up until the Fleet jumps away.
It is the paradox that tears at her soul and sears her throat. Despite commanding a pack of Raiders, she still identifies with the Vipers as needing her protection and skills.
She is screaming in her sleep by the time the second Viper is hit. She is screaming at it to get out of the way while a second breath gives her air to growl at the Colonial fighter like the enemy it reads on her radar.
Her nightmare always ends the same way: the Galactica jumps and she is not with them. That is when her screams become cries. It is her cries that jolt her awake just in time to keep the tears that crowded her eyelashes locked in her ducts for one more sleep cycle.
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Running his calloused hand through his sweat-soaked hair only made it spike in every direction.
Coming off CAP, Captain Adama handed his post-flight checklist off to the nearest Specialist and scoped the deck.
The latest tangle with the Cylons left the condition of his Air Group in an even more challenging state. Two more birds and a Raptor had been towed in and placed along side the other eight planes still waiting on being repaired and decreed flight worthy.
Stepping down the ladder and finding his footing on the deck, Captain Adama spied Tyrol in an animated conversation with Jammer. Catching only a word here and there, the Chief was explaining where the deckhand could find more sheet metal to begin re-plating body damage on a number of downed Vipers. The decision to have a conversation with the Chief of the Deck – sooner than later – had him crossing the hanger bay and stopping three feet from Tyrol's elbow.
"Chief – a moment of your time when you're clear," Captain Adama masked his command with a barely-there statement.
"Sure, Captain. Jammer here is going to go to the nearest supply closet and pick out a new brain because the one he has isn't working properly." The Chief's blatant insult carried a barely-there dismissal.
Not caring which brain Jammer thought with as long as it possessed the knowledge to repair Raptors and Vipers, Captain Adama locked his eyes on Tyrol.
"Talk to me, Chief. Tell me what we're looking at and what it will take for you to sort it all out."
"Sir – the Cylons are kicking our asses. This latest trend of 'damage only' is worse than if the birds were destroyed altogether. I have three teams – Scrounge, Manufacture and Fabricate – working around the clock just to try to keep up with all the repairs, parts and general grunt-monkeying that comes with working the Deck." The way the Chief pointed at invisible people, groups and Viper parts was all secondary to what Captain Adama was asking. "My crews are exhausted, Captain. You and I need to work out a way to solve that."
Captain Adama read between the lines: you are the CAG, you take care of this. But, he let it go – for now. Surveying the damage, he needed the Chief on the deck more than the man needed to understand that thinly veiled insubordination could lead to hack-time. He did agree with the huskier man on one point though – something was up with the way Cylons now did battle. There were a lot of pilots injured, others awaiting the 'all clear' from Cottle. Every bird made it back to the barn. The difference between a crippled craft coming in on its own power or towed in by SAR was little to none. Each option was as likely as the other. But, in the last couple of weeks, there had not been any deaths.
Frak! If Starbuck were here, she would be the one to make sure this kind of stuff didn't even show up on his radar. She would give him the numbers, an estimated time frame until repairs could be completed and meet that deadline. He and the Chief should be commiserating rather than trading barbs over the fact that they were overworked and understaffed. Ingratiating herself as a buffer between command and the knuckle-draggers was something he was only just now realizing she did for him to make his – and the Chief's – life easier and rough-graded the relationship between he and Tyrol.
He liked the Chief, if the truth were told. The man was loyal, smart, made a great home brew, could talk to a machine and make it tell him 'where it hurt' and 'how to make it better'. More than that though, Starbuck trusted him enough to fix her Viper when she was not able to and enjoyed his company during their off-duty hours. Considering his next words, he knew the look on Tyrol's face would be payment for having to listen to the other man's piss-poor attitude.
"Chief – a word of advice as it pertains to our current state." Captain Adama put a sharp edge to his words as he levelled a scathing look at the Chief of the Deck. "Be grateful that you have the time to manage your people and not spending the same amount of time buttoning up your brass and attending another bodiless memorial surface."
Lee's mouth opened his mouth to add a post-script to his 'advice' but it was Dualla's voice that echoed off the bulkheads and reverberated off the steel girders.
"Attention all hands: pass the word to Captain Adama to report to the CO's quarters. Repeat: pass the word to Captain Adama to report to the CO's quarters."
Turning on his heel and making his way towards his office to collect the reports he knew his father was waiting on, the parting shot that had been resting on his tongue was swallowed. The Chief had already moved on; Cally had pulled him away to evaluate a Raptor that was being taxied across the deck during the precious few seconds it took for Captain Adama to listen to his summons.
A quick shower and a quicker exchange of a sweaty flight suit for his blues saw his shoes barely tied as he set out to see the Old Man.
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The knock on the door of his father's quarters was perfunctory. Shifting the file folders from a casual grip to being able to present them in a more formal fashion, Lee made his way to the large desk behind which his father sat intently reviewing the papers in front of him.
Offering the folders but not finding an out-stretched hand to accept them, Lee thought that maybe the Commander needed a reminder as to what he carried.
"Here is the breakdown of what we will need to maintain minimal-safe patrols along with projections about – "
His father cut him off in mid-explanation.
"Sit down, Lee." Adama's head was still bowed. Lee saw that his glasses were resting on the desk, not perched on his nose. Whatever his father was looking at, Adama knew it well enough to brief him without having to read it. "We need to talk."
His father's voice was grim and determined. That alone was enough to have him reach for the chair sitting kitty-corner from the desk and drag it forward.
Settled, he knew that what ever the Commander had to say was going to affect a lot of people on a lot of levels – which explained why he was summoned to a formal meeting but greeted with his first name.
"President Roslin and I have been talking for a while now about the possibility of black-op." Adama lifted his head and threaded his fingers.
The temptation to ask his father what he was talking about bloomed and died as the Commander continued.
"The purpose of which is to recover Starbuck."
Temptation died and guarded hope resurrected in its ashes.
"Are you serious? There are seventeen FTL jumps between where we were when we lost her and where we are now. I know – I have been pouring over the star-charts for weeks now, just trying to do the very thing you just so blithely declared." He heard the accusation level in his voice rise but didn't bother to check it. Some part of him did harbour resentment over the fact that his father didn't scramble every available resource to go out and bring back the woman he considered family. Another part of him – the pilot and the tactician – felt the tingle of opportunity to take back what was his.
Adama let Lee's tone slide over him without reproach. He knew this was coming and steeled himself accordingly, which was why he was able to continue the briefing. He didn't have it in him to give Lee enough rope to strangle his heart.
"It's not like that, son."
Seeing Lee look taken back made him reach for some papers just to shuffle them around as he sought the words he needed.
"Every time I see her eject, every time you launch without her as your wingman, every time I sense someone running in the corridors and it isn't her, I feel it here," Adama tapped his chest. "And here," Adama rung each hand in turn. "And here," Adama pointed to the pictures on the side table; interspersed among the frames protecting images of Caroline, Lee, Zak and Anne were three pictures – one each of Kara, Starbuck and Captain Thrace. "I won't pretend to know your pain, Lee, but I do know my own."
The truth of Adama's feelings for Kara didn't hide the fact that the Old Man was buying time, stalling. His father was worse than he was at expressing his emotions. His father was a military man through-and-through. The Commander was setting him up for something and was taking the long way to get there. That sparked his temper and grated against his sense of professionalism.
"We have already done this – remember? You reminded me that I didn't have the cornerstone on grief." Shackling the bitter words that bubbled up from the wound his father picked at, he centred himself and levelled his gaze at a square inch of wall just to the left of the older man's shoulder. "What have you and the President really been discussing?"
Adama accepted Lee's blame and let it pool around his feet and rise as high as his knees. He would be wading through it for years to come as it had the possibility of becoming the only connection he would have with Lee once his son fully accepted what it was he was going to be asked to do and achieve.
"I have been over the footage and at no point in time is there any indication that the Cylons jettisoned Starbuck's ejection seat. That leads me to believe that they still have it." Adama explained. "You know, as well as I do, that the power cell on the transponder signal has a six month window barring it being tampered with or irrevocably damaged. We find the chair, most likely we find her. At the very least, we find the Cylons who had her last and track her from there."
"Why, Dad? Why now? Why after all this time are we doing this now?" Lee needed answers RFN.
"Because the President reminded me of something that I had forgotten up until a week ago, Lee," Adama admitted.
"Oh yeah – and what was that?"
The sneer in his son's voice was unmistakable, which was why Adama kept his tone as even and as neutral as his reason hit the desktop.
"That Kara knows the way to Earth."
Hearing his father's words was like a concussion grenade detonating in the office. Suddenly, Lee could not hear anything beyond a roaring in his ears. As it was, he had to fight to tune out the thudding of his heart and focus on the words still streaming from the Commander's lips.
"She was there with us in the Tomb of Athena. She knows the constellations that point the way to the last known outpost of mankind and she was the one to point out that we were standing on Earth, in that circle of standing stones, when President Roslin ticked off the ancient names of the twelve tribes."
"So the President and you want to mount a recovery mission…" Lee heard his voice trail off even as the full realization of the 'recovery' congealed his blood. He was trained to rescue a pilot in the same way he was trained to recover a body.
Erupting from his chair, Lee exploded at his father. "There is NO WAY the Cylons know that!"
Lee knew he was out of line challenging a superior officer but he could not control himself. Not over this, not with what his father was going to do, and especially in the wake of it carrying the President's 'seal of approval'.
"You want to use the stealth ship to track the Cylons, to find out where Kara is, feed back the co-ordinates so that you can jump in-system, blow where ever the hell she is to Hades, taking her with them in the process and get out again before the wreckage has even burned itself out – don't you?!" Lee hurled his words at the man sitting behind the desk as he spelled out how the op would play out.
Changing his tone of voice, he figured it was time someone reminded the Old Man what the definition of loyalty meant.
"Kara gave up her life to save us, to make sure we made it to Earth. And this is how we re-pay her? By taking a chance on getting us killed based in the fear of a remote possibility that a suspicion might be speculated in which case the Cylons will, in turn, think she knows how to get to Earth?"
"Starbuck knew her life was over the second she struck that accord with Caster." Adama reminded his CAG.
"Cast-or," Lee reflexively corrected his commander.
Ignoring Lee's side comment, Adama laid out his justifications.
"We cannot take the chance of leading the Cylons to Earth. It is an unacceptable risk, Captain."
"Unacceptable, huh? Those are HER words, Commander – NOT yours!" An echo of a previous encounter – ironically that 'conversation' was about the rescue operation mounted over Starbuck as well – with Madam President resonated between the two men.
"Do you want to 'make it a numbers' game', Captain?" Adama retorted and regret flashed across his face as soon as he threw an on-going subject of guilt he knew his son still wrestled with at the younger man. "Starbuck knew what she was doing. We're just completing her mission."
"I'd say it was a case of over-kill, Commander. Seeing as how her 'mission' is already complete since you and I are here, drawing breath, and not floating free as radio-active cosmic dust. One life exchanged for the lives of many isn't good enough for you, is it? You are going to dispatch someone to recover 'viable intelligence', right?" Lee was lethally calm and venomous. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I need you to plan it, Lee."
Never had Lee ever fought the urge to tell his father to go frak himself before this very moment.
"No. Frakking. Way."
"You can, and you will. Because once you stop and think about it, the guilt you carry from destroying the Olympic Carrier will never come close to the level you will blame yourself if an entire planet – innocent of the crime of creating Cylons in the first place – falls victim to the same level of annihilation as the home worlds we left behind."
Standing up, done with this meeting, the need to get out of the office was overwhelming.
Lee glared at the man who sat so calmly behind his desk, who spoke so rationally about something so unfathomable, and actually had nothing to say to counter his arguments.
That didn't mean he didn't have something to say to his father.
"Yeah, Dad – what ever you need to let yourself sleep at night that doesn't come in the form of a pill or liquor bottle."
Snapping off a salute that was as derogatory as it was perfunctory; Captain Adama turned on his heel and stalked away without waiting to be dismissed.
Three feet from the hatch, the sound of something shattering against the wall of the Commander's quarters only gave him more reason to keep walking.
Riding the adrenaline spike just a little longer had him cursing at someone else.
And frak you, Starbuck – why does everything have to go to hell every time you pull a stunt like this?
Immediately apologizing as his feet ate up corridor after corridor of decking, he sighed.
She had waited too long to let them find her and bring her home – now it was too late.
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